Literature
With the development of language, the human imagination has found a way to create and communicate through the written word. A literary work can transport us into a fictional, fantastic new world, describe a fleeting feeling, or simply give us a picture of the past through novels, poems, tragedies, epic works, and other genres. Through literature, communication becomes an art, and it can bridge and bond people and cultures of different languages and backgrounds.
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Featured content, July 16, 2020
Why Do Languages Die?
How does someone become the last known speaker of a language?
Demystified / Literature

10 Failed Doomsday Predictions
Predictions for the end of the world that (obviously) didn’t come true.
List / Literature

Diagnosing 9 of Charles Dickens’s Most Famous Characters
Dickens had a knack for expertly portraying human diseases.
#WTFact / Literature

Persian literature
Persian literature, body of writings in New Persian (also called Modern Persian), the form of the Persian language written...
Encyclopedia / Literature

African literature
African literature, the body of traditional oral and written literatures in Afro-Asiatic and African languages together with...
Encyclopedia / Literature

Central Asian arts
Central Asian arts, the literary, performing, and visual arts of a large portion of Asia embracing the Turkic republics (Uzbekistan,...
Encyclopedia / Literature

African American literature
African American literature, body of literature written by Americans of African descent. Beginning in the pre-Revolutionary...
Encyclopedia / Literature

Literature Quizzes
Literature Videos
Literature Subcategories

Step into the world of folklore, fables, legends, tall tales, and epics, in which heroes are known to undertake arduous journeys and dragons, fairies, and giants abound. Stories such as these circulated long before systems of writing were developed; ballads, folktales, poems, and the like were transmitted exclusively by word of mouth before written languages took over, and they continue to captivate listeners and readers to this day.
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Bj?rnstjerne Martinius Bj?rnson
Norwegian author
- Folk literature
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Guslar
Balkan singers

Here you'll find some of your favorite fictional characters from literature, film, television, and the like, whether it's the analytical mastermind Sherlock Holmes and his endearing associate Dr. Watson or the menacing and helmeted Darth Vader, the ill-tempered Donald Duck or the teenage sleuth Nancy Drew.
Articles
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Doctor Strange
fictional character
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Batman
fictional character
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Fantastic Four
fictional characters

Extra, extra! Although the content and style of journalism and the medium through which it is delivered have varied significantly over the years, journalism has always given us a way to keep up with current events, so that we always have our fingers on the pulse.
Articles
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Maj Sj?wall and Per Wahl??
Swedish journalists and authors
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Dorothy Thompson
American journalist and writer
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Christiane Amanpour
journalist

Looking to impress your friends with your expansive knowledge of historical events, philosophical concepts, obscure words, and more? We may be biased, but it seems fair enough to say that reference works such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, and textbooks have provided such a service for years (in some cases, hundreds or even thousands of years). You can look for them at your local public library, which likely stores books, manuscripts, journals, CDs, movies, and other sources of information and entertainment.
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Folger Shakespeare Library
research centre, Washington, District of Columbia,...
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Albrecht von Haller
Swiss biologist
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Library of Alexandria
ancient library, Alexandria, Egypt

Literature knows no geographical bounds; authors can be found in nearly all corners of the globe (except, perhaps, on the open sea). Find out more about regional literary styles and forms.
Articles

Everyone's a critic. But not all literary criticism involves judging the quality of a text; it can also focus on interpreting the meaning of a work or evaluating an author's place in literary history.
Articles
- Textual criticism
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Charles Baudelaire
French author
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Edward Said
American professor and literary critic

This general category includes a selection of more specific topics.
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Autobiography
literature
- Literature
- Metaphor

The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth! Nonfiction works are all about facts and real events. Although there is some debate about which kinds of literature qualify as nonfiction, the genre typically includes books in the categories of biography, memoir, science, history, self-help, cooking, health and fitness, business, and more.
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Epitaph
poetic form
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Essay
literature
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Autobiography
literature

Whether it's "Don Quixote," "Pride and Prejudice," "The Great Gatsby," or "The Fall of the House of Usher," novels and short stories have been enchanting and transporting readers for a great many years. There's a little something for everyone: within these two genres of literature, a wealth of types and styles can be found, including historical, epistolary, romantic, Gothic, and realist works, along with many more.
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The Book of Negroes
novel by Hill
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Ulysses
novel by Joyce
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All Quiet on the Western Front
novel by Remarque

"I have a dream..." "Four score and seven years ago..." It's not a fluke that these phrases came to be so widely known and remembered. Truly great and persuasive speeches elicit strong emotional reactions in their audiences and may have broad historical repercussions. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech and Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, quoted above, are two iconic examples of successful oratory, as are Elizabeth I's speech to the troops at Tilbury and Winston Churchill's first speech as prime minister to the House of Commons.
Articles
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St. Augustine
Christian bishop and theologian
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Oratory
rhetoric
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John Bright
British politician

All the world's a stage, as Shakespeare put it in "As You Like It"; and the stage is where you'll find performances of works by such famed playwrights as Anton Chekhov, Eugene O'Neill, and the Bard himself, among many others.
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Faust
play by Goethe
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Death of a Salesman
play by Miller
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Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
play by Albee

Poetry is a vast subject that encompasses much more than just your average "Roses are red, violets are blue" poem. Delve into the category of literature that Percy Bysshe Shelley called "a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted," and which includes sonnets, haikus, nursery rhymes, epics, and more.
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Mahabharata
Hindu literature
- Light verse
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Rondeau
poetry and music